Not exactly correct statistics from Elsevier

["Jan Szczepanski. Goteborgs Univ Bibl" <Jan.Szczepanski@xxxxxxxx>]

Liebe Kolleginnen und Kollege!

I'm sorry that I use English but I have an urgent message.

At the Open Access Summit in Cologne, 6-8 December, Mr Michael A. Mabe made
a presentation called: Open Access: The Commercial Publisher's view
<http://www.zbmed.de/summit/Mabe.ppt>http://www.zbmed.de/summit/Mabe.ppt.

which he repeated in Göteborg 9 December
http://www.ub.gu.se/bibliotek/Gm/sem/sem.xml

In Köln he claimed that there is a decline in new OA journals. Just eleven
was started during 2004. Which Mr Jan Verlterop from BioMedCentral
protested against and told Mr Mabe from Elsevier that just BIoMedCentral
had started more than eleven during 2004 and wondered where the figures
come from.
<http://www.openspf.de/space/start>http://www.openspf.de/space/start

In Mr Mabes presentation at NVBF 6th Nordic interlending conference,
Trondheim, 1 October 2004 You can see that his figueres are from DOAJ.
<http://old.norskbibliotekforening.no/fjernlaan/konferanse2004/mabe_michael.p
pt>http://old.norskbibliotekforening.no/fjernlaan/konferanse2004/mabe_michael
.ppt

In one of Mr Mabes power point pictures You can see "Decline in new OA
titles"

403 started before 2000
99 in 2000
116 in 2001
85 in 2002
58 in 2003
1 in 2004 as of April

Can You see the decline? From 403 to 1? This is a good example how You
could lie with statistics. Before 2000 is covering more than 15 years!
Why does Mr Mabe use figures from DOAJ that just has started not long ago
and not the thousands of free e-journals in Elektronische
Zeitschriftenbibliothek?

These figures from Mr Mabe was used by the British government to show that
open access is in y in it's answer to the parliamentary report about
electronic journals.


We can just hope that not every government in EU is listening to publishers
like Elsevier about "decline" in open access.


Mit vorweihnachtlichen Grüßen

Jan






Jan Szczepanski
Förste bibliotekarie
Goteborgs universitetsbibliotek
Box 222
SE 405 30 Goteborg, SWEDEN
Tel: +46 31 773 1164 Fax: +46 31 163797
E-mail: Jan.Szczepanski@xxxxxxxx